Words of The Witches
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: What's Grams to do when Phoebe suddenly finds out about magic?


**Author's Note: **This is a missing scene from the end of _The Three Faces of Phoebe_, although it could also be considered a prequel to my other story, _The Gift_.

**Ages: **Ages are canon, according to the dates I've found: Phoebe-10; Piper-13; Prue-15

**Words of The Witches**

"Grams!"

"What is it, Phoebe?" Penny asked, running, panicked, into the living room as her youngest granddaughter thundered down the stairs. "Is something wrong?"

"You're never going to guess what just happened to me!" Phoebe exclaimed, skidding to a halt. "It was the coolest thing!"

"What's all the yelling about?" Prue complained, entering the living room, Piper trailing behind. "Some of us were trying to study, you know."

"Prue, lighten up," Phoebe said, automatically. "School's not everything, you know."

"Phoebe, grow up," Prue retorted, as Penny stepped between them.

"That's enough from both of you," she said, mildly, silencing them both with a look. "Now, Phoebe, what's got you so excited?"

"I just got back from the future!" Phoebe informed her, shocking her family into a stunned silence.

"Get real," Prue said, dismissively; the first to speak.

"Yeah, Phoebe, you probably fell asleep and had a dream," Piper spoke up.

"I did not!" Phoebe cried, stamping her foot, defiantly. "I really went to the future."

"Sure you did, Phoebes," Prue said, now willing to indulge her baby sister.

"I'm telling the truth," Phoebe insisted.

"Okay," Piper said, joining Prue in pandering to Phoebe. "If you really went to the future, then tell us what you saw."

"I saw you and me as adults," Phoebe told her, eagerly. "I didn't see Prue, but that's probably because she was off at her job."

"Sounds like Prue," Piper said, smirking, as Prue elbowed her in the side.

"Fine," Prue said. "What year was it?"

"I think Piper's husband said that it was 2002," Phoebe said.

Piper gaped in amazement.

"My husband?" she cried, astonished.

"Yeah, his name is Leo and he's cute," Phoebe said, grinning. "And you stopped looking like such a dork."

"I don't look like a dork!" Piper exclaimed, hotly. "Grams!"

"Phoebe, don't tease your sister," Penny said, absently. "Girls, I'm going to be in the kitchen," she added, but her granddaughters didn't hear her, having turned back to their argument.

"And I saw my fiancé," Phoebe was saying, as Penny slipped quietly into the other room. "His name is Cole and he looks just like Cinderella's Prince Charming."

**XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

"What are you going to do?" Leo asked, quietly, as Penny sank down into a chair with a heavy sigh.

"What can I do?" Penny asked, plaintively. "Phoebe has seen her future and apparently remembers all of it. Now, she's out there telling Prue and Piper everything she experienced."

"How do you think it happened?" Leo asked.

"Phoebe couldn't have done anything from this end, even if she'd found the Book of Shadows," Penny said. "Most likely, the person she will grow up to be in 2002 cast a spell that somehow drew our Phoebe to her from this time."

"Which doesn't tell me what I'm going to do, now that she's got this foreknowledge," she continued, heaving another sigh.

"You could write a spell or brew a potion," Leo suggested. "Something more reliable than memory dust to erase their memories."

"And would you submit to that as well?" Penny asked, shrewdly.

"What are you talking about?" Leo asked, confused.

"I know you've been listening," Penny told him. "You've heard everything Phoebe said, including her news about Piper."

"She could mean any man named Leo," Leo protested, weakly.

"Of all my granddaughters, it is Piper whom you watch over the closest," Penny said. "I do have eyes, Leo."

"No," she continued, after a long moment of silence, "I don't think I'll tamper with their memories. Perhaps it's time I told the girls about their heritage, their destiny."

"If you think that's best," Leo said, hesitantly.

"I do," Penny told him. "And I want you to go and inform the Elders of what I plan to do."

After a moment, Leo orbed away, and Penny walked back into the living room, into the middle of her fiercely squabbling granddaughters.

"What's the meaning of this?" she demanded, getting in between Prue and Phoebe once again, cutting them off mid-shout.

"Grams, you have to tell Phoebe to stop lying!" Prue insisted.

"I'm telling the truth," Phoebe retorted, glaring furiously at her big sister. "I was attacked by a demon and Cole saved my life!"

"Demons don't exist," Prue snapped.

"That's enough," Penny said, breaking up the fight before it could come to blows between the two girls. "I want you two to sit on the couch."

When they sulked, sullenly, she leveled a glare at them.

"Now," she said, pointing, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Piper, please join them."

"Are we in trouble?" Piper asked, eying her warily as she sat down in an armchair across fromher three granddaughters.

"No, you're not in trouble," Penny assured her. "I just want to talk to you girls."

"About what?" Prue asked, still sulking.

"About magic," Penny told them. "Magic is very much real," she continued, ignoring Prue's sarcastic eye roll, as Phoebe sat forward, eagerly. "Demons are real, as well."

"I knew it," she said, softly, earning a stern look from her grandmother.

"Phoebe, it is very likely that you traveled into your future," she told her.

"How, Grams?" Piper asked, curiously. "How is it possible for Phoebe to go to the future?"

"It's possible because the three of you are witches," Penny told them. "I am a witch, your mother was a witch, and you come from a very long line of powerful witches," she added, ignoring their shocked gasps.

"This is impossible," Prue said, angrily. "Witches don't exist."

"Prue-" Penny began.

"If we're witches, then how come we can't do anything magical?" Prue demanded. "If Mom was a witch, why did she drown?"

"When you three were very young," Penny said, "a demon threatened you. Your mother and I felt the best way to end that threat would be to bind you girls' powers. That's why you can't do anything magical."

"If demons attacked us," Piper spoke up, "did they attack Mom, too?"

"Yes," Penny said, sadly. "Unfortunately, they did."

"Is that how Mom died?" Piper continued. "Was she fighting a demon?"

"Yes," Penny repeated, watching her granddaughters try and take in the news.

"Do you fight demons, too?" Prue asked, finally. At Penny's nod, she sprang up angrily from her seat.

"Why?" she cried. "Why would you fight demons after they killed Mom? What if they killed you?"

"That's a risk I have to take," Penny said, feeling the words weigh heavily down on her. "It's a risk faced by all witches in our duty to protect the Innocent."

"Well, I don't want to be a witch!" Prue exclaimed, startling them. "Not if I have to lose you."

"You're only seeing the bad side of magic," Penny protested, trying to make them see sense. "Magic has brought such joy to my life, and has the capacity to do infinite good."

"Like what?" Piper demanded, siding with her sisters.

"Like, Phoebe's trip to the future," Penny said, seizing on an opportunity. "Phoebe, tell us everything that you saw."

"I already did," Phoebe protested.

"Tell us again," Penny encouraged.

"Well," Phoebe began, hesitantly, "I was up in my room, playing, and then I was standing in the attic. There was a bunch of people around, including another me at, like, eighty."

"What were you like?" Prue asked, intrigued despite her reservations.

"I was wearing a really ugly sweater," Phoebe said, shuddering dramatically. "And I was really mad at Cole and my other self. I couldn't figure out why."

"What else?" Penny prompted.

"Piper was there," Phoebe continued. "Only she didn't have the braces or glasses. And she had her husband with her."

"Leo," Piper said dreamily, practically savoring the name.

"I was at work, right?" Prue asked.

"I think so," Phoebe said, shrugging. "My future self didn't say and I never saw you."

"Was there anything else?" Penny asked.

"There was another girl there," Phoebe said, thoughtfully. "She said her name was Paige, and that she was our cousin through Mom's side but that she was as close as a sister."

"I thought you said that Mom was an only child," Prue said, suspiciously, eying Penny.

"Did I?" Penny asked, airily. "Phoebe, dear, why don't you tell us about this demon?"

"Well," Phoebe said, "I don't think they wanted me to hear them, but I heard them talking about someone named Kurzon. And then Leo took me to a place in the clouds and I didn't see anything more. He brought me back in time to see my really old self fading away, and then I was in my room again."

"Then, you came down here yelling," Prue supplied. "Which reminds me, you interrupted my studying, and I have an important test tomorrow."

"How can you care about some stupid test with everything that Grams just told us?" Phoebe demanded, incredulously. "We're witches, Prue. That trumps everything."

"Yeah," Piper chimed in. "Hey, can we do a spell?" she asked, turning to Penny.

"What kind of spell?" Penny asked, laughing at her granddaughter's eagerness.

"I don't know," Piper said, evasively.

"Maybe something that lets you see your future husband?" Penny asked, shrewdly.

"Maybe," Piper replied.

"It wouldn't work, anyway," Prue spoke up. "Grams bound our powers, remember?"

"So, she can unbind them," Phoebe said, jumping on Piper's bandwagon. "Come on, Grams. Please?"

"I'll think about it," Penny said, laughing. Then, she looked up and saw Leo standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "Girls, I'll be right back," she said, slipping away as they continued to talk about magic.

"I didn't expect you back so soon, Leo," Penny said, joining him.

"Penny, I did as you asked," Leo said, quietly. "I told the Elders about your plan to tell the sisters what they are."

"And?" Penny asked, not sure that she wanted to hear his answer.

"I'm so sorry, Penny," Leo told her, unhappily. "The Elders have decided that they cannot be allowed to remember. You must erase their memories."

Penny didn't reply; she couldn't. Instead, she looked out at the living room, where her granddaughters were talking and laughing eagerly.

"Grams, come on!" Phoebe called, catching sight of her. "We want to use our magic!"

"In a minute, girls," she replied. Turning back to Leo, she sighed heavily before she spoke.

"How am I supposed to take magic away from them, when it's come to mean so much to them in so little time?" she asked.

Leo had no answer for her.

**XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

"Her name is Paige."

"Mother," Patty said, frowning. "What are you talking about?"

"Your daughter," Penny elaborated. "Yours and Sam's daughter."

"What?" Patty gasped. "How could you know that?"

"Phoebe went to the future," Penny explained. "Not deliberately, of course, but it happened, and she came back with information about her future."

"And all four of my girls are together?" Patty asked, barely daring to hope.

"According to Phoebe, she's their cousin through your side," Penny said, smiling affectionately. "I think they may have been hard-pressed to come up with a story to tell her that sounded believable."

"My girls are really together," Patty said, happily. "I never dared to dream of this day."

"Neither did I," Penny told her.

"The girls," Patty said, suddenly. "Do they still have their memories?"

Penny shook her head, sadly.

"The Elders were adamant," she said. "I wasn't allowed to let the girls keep their memories of the incident. I had to use a spell to erase them. Leo's, too," she muttered, quietly.

"Why?" Patty demanded, aghast.

"Only the Elders know their reasons for what they do," Penny said. "And they rarely choose to confide in lowly mortals."

"It's not fair, taking this away from them, again," Patty said, sighing.

"There's nothing we can do," Penny said, "except hope that someday they learn the truth on their own."

"And what about Paige?" Patty asked, softly.

"We wait for the day when she's reunited with the family," Penny said, simply.

"There's nothing else we can do," Patty said, echoing her mother's earlier words. "Blessed be, Mother."

"Blessed be, darling," Penny said, smiling.

Reaching out, she extinguished the candles, plunging the attic into darkness.

**XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

Listening hard for any sounds that might betray her, Phoebe snuck silently out of bed and crept over to her dresser. Opening the bottom drawer slowly, she rummaged through her clothing until her fingers touched her photo album.

Digging it out, she took it back to her bed and crawled under the covers. Pulling a flashlight out from under her pillow, she clicked it on and slowly leafed through the pages of the book, savoring every picture. Then, she reached the blank pages and turned to the very back of the album.

Reaching under her pillow again, she took out a picture that she'd hidden there earlier in the day. Her future self was gazing lovingly up into Cole's eyes, ignoring whomever it was who held the camera. Peeling back the protective sheet, she carefully centered the picture on the adhesive before smoothing the clear plastic back over the page. Satisfied with herself, she closed the album with a smile.

"Someday," she whispered, softly, "my prince will come."


End file.
